As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
An information handling system may include one or more circuit boards operable to mechanically support and electrically couple electronic components making up the information handling system. For example, circuit boards may be used as part of motherboards, memories, storage devices, storage device controllers, peripherals, peripheral cards, network interface cards, and/or other electronic components. As is known in the art, a circuit board may comprise a plurality of conductive layers separated and supported by layers of insulating material laminated together, with conductive traces disposed on and/or in any of such conductive layers. As is also known in the art, connectivity between conductive traces disposed on and/or in various layers of a circuit board may be provided by conductive vias.
To electrically couple circuit boards together or to couple a circuit board to a cable comprising electrically conductive wires, electrical connectors may be used. One type of mating between connectors may be referred to as a mating blade architecture, depicted in FIGS. 1A and 1B. In a mating blade architecture, a first connector 10 may comprise a housing 12 (e.g., constructed of plastic or other suitable material) which houses one or more blade pins 14 electrically coupled via the connector to corresponding electrically-conductive conduits (e.g., wires of a cable or vias/traces of a circuit board). A second connector 16 of the mating blade architecture may include a housing 18 (e.g., constructed of plastic or other suitable material) which houses one or more beam pins 20. To couple first connector 10 and second connector 16, a force may be applied to one or both of first connector 10 and second connector 16 in the direction of the double-ended arrow shown in FIG. 1A, such that each blade pin 14 slides under the upwardly-curving portion of a corresponding beam pin 20, to electrically couple each blade pin 14 to its corresponding beam pin 20 at a contact point 22 as shown in FIG. 1B.
As a result of the coupling between a blade pin 14 and its corresponding beam pin 20, portions of each of blade pin 14 and beam pin 20 may be “unused” in the sense that such portions are present but not needed to conduct a signal between blade pin 14 and beam pin 20. Rather, such portions are present to create mechanical features ensuring the physical mating of connectors 10 and 16. For example, as can be seen from FIG. 1B, blade pin 14 may have an unused portion or “stub” 24 which is not part of an electrically conductive path between blade pin 14 and beam pin 20, and beam pin 20 may also have an unused portion or stub 26 which is not part of an electrically conductive path between blade pin 14 and beam pin 20.
Each stub 24 and 26 may act as an antenna, and thus may resonate at frequencies (and harmonics thereof) for which the length of such stub 24 or 26 is equal to one-quarter of the wavelength of such frequencies. As transmission frequencies used in the communication pathways of information handling systems increase, signals operating at such frequencies may be affected by such resonances, resulting in decreased signal integrity.
Some approaches may be employed to mitigate the effect of stub resonances, but such approaches still have disadvantages. For example, an alternative to the mating blade architecture, and known as a mating beam architecture, is depicted in FIGS. 2A and 2B. In a mating beam architecture, a first connector 30 may comprise a housing 32 (e.g., constructed of plastic or other suitable material) which houses one or more first beam pins 34 electrically coupled via the connector to corresponding electrically-conductive conduits (e.g., wires of a cable or vias/traces of a circuit board). A second connector 36 of the mating beam architecture may include a housing 38 (e.g., constructed of plastic or other suitable material) which houses one or more second beam pins 40. To couple first connector 30 and second connector 36, a force may be applied to one or both of first connector 30 and second connector 36 in the direction of the double-ended arrow shown in FIG. 2A, such that each first beam pin 34 slides under the upwardly-curving portion of a corresponding second beam pin 40, to electrically couple each first beam pin 34 to its corresponding second beam pin 40 at a contact point 42 as shown in FIG. 2B. While this architecture may eliminate the mating blade stub of one connector, this architecture still includes two stubs 44 and 46 which may cause undesirable resonances.